#// and a thread called 'uncertainty and displacement'

[symphonicsoul]

⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆ Cid is sighing as the two boys leave but there's nothing they can do to stop them and no real reason to do so anyway. Ling needs to be with his friend and Edward has been angry since he got here.

"Hey, just so you know..." The mechanic's voice trails out as he leans against the counter he was standing front of as he crosses his arms over his chest.

"He asked about your name. If Makenshi was a nickname and I told him it was complicated and left it at that. He asked if Kumo was a nickname too."

"And you told him -?"

"That it was and you probably wouldn't mind it if he used it too."

"So then what name did you give him?"

"White Cloud."

"I see. That's fine. It's not exactly wrong."

"Can I ask why you lied in the first place?"

"Something told me to stay guarded, so I did. Makenshi was the first name that left my lips."

"Was he aggressive with you?"

"Not really. Just lost. Very lost. I explained a little bit. Soil and Mist, but I doubt he retrained any of it."

"How old do you think he is?"

"Honestly, it's hard to tell with humans some times but if I had to guess around Edward's age. So in other words, young."

"And kids never deal with falling into Wonderland well."

"I mean, no one does but it seems to be a special sort of worse for children."

"We'll keep an eye on hi- "

"My Liege!"

"Speaking of children -"

"I am not a child."

But the Aurorean is in the room before the Cloud Prince with his hands cupping his face to tilt his gaze up to him as the man of green begins to thoroughly check the royal over for any sign of injury.

"You are well, My Liege?"

"Joo, I'm fine, Revon. No need to worry."

"I think no matter what you do, Kumo, you're still their child."

The swordsman is sighing as the knight hovers with lime green brows upturned with worry.

"Really Revon, I am fine."

"You left again without a word. You know I will follow you anywhere, Highness."

"I know but you were taking a nap with Aqua and I didn't want to wake you."

"Valkoinen."

It's a tone he wasn't expecting to hear come from the other man as the word that falls into the air between them is a firm warning that he means what he says. A parent scolding without being too harsh.

Jade eyes are glancing over to Cid who only stares in surprise for a moment and he can see indigo eyes logging away the missing puzzle piece for later.

The prince sighs.

"Valkoinen Pilvi you know full well it is my sworn duty to keep you safe, so please allow me to do my job. Aqua would understand and agree. We would rather you leave with company so you can remain protected than to simply leave on your own. You have wanted posters up, My Liege and if I am to be so bold. You are powerful but not untouchable. You could have at least taken the Windarian."

He's sighing as Cid chimes in.

"He's right, Kumo. I hate it when you leave alone. If you can't take your family, at least take Kaze. We both know he'll just shoot someone before he lets anything happen. Even if he doesn't openly express it, Kaze does care about you. He'd raise hell before he'd let anything happen to you again. So please at the very least, the next time you go out. Take Kaze."

The swordsman can only sign because it's hard to argue with their worry.

"I will discuss the next time I need to travel with Black Wind. Is that suitable, Revon?"

"You can still bring me even if you're bringing the Windarian."

"If you are not busy with one of the others, I would prefer your company but I will consider bringing you both."

There is a collective sigh as they come an agreement but the knight still finds himself lingering ever so close to the Snow White Prince.

"So how's Setä?" He sounds.

"Better but still not great. He's been asleep with Sielu just about all day."

"Is he any less sour?"

"He's getting there but I do not know where your stash of sugar worms is. I was going to give him some but I didn't want to sort through your things."

"Revon is has been thirty-five years. Come with me, I'll show you. We can give some to them when he wakes up."

On a different occasion, maybe a more normal occasion, when Edward lifted him up, Ling might tell him that it's not necessary. He can walk on his own and Ed doesn't need to go that far. But this isn't normal. Things stopped being normal a while ago. And he knows he wouldn't be able to move far on his own. He was on the verge of collapse already.

So he's silent as he's carried to Ed's room and he completely forgets to ask Kumo if it's actually okay to call him that while they're leaving. Ah, well. He can ask him tomorrow once he's gotten some sleep.

He should probably pay attention to the directions to where Ed is taking him, but instead he's focusing on trying to settle himself and focus on the fact that the alchemist isn't disappearing. He's alive. Alive.

The room isn't anything special but Ling hadn't expected it to be, nor does he care. As long as his source of comfort and safety is there, that's all that matters. That's all he cares about. By the time he's placed on the bed, his heart isn't beating as roughly and his body isn't shaking as much. He watches all of Edward's movement closely and shifts towards him once he's next to him.

He nods at Ed's words and whispers, "Okay...thank you, Edward."

His voice may be tired but there's gratitude in it as well. The words, how gentle Edward's been this whole time. The fact he isn't calling him out on his weak behaviour. He'll have to do something for him later to thank him. For now, he just wants to sleep.

Ling curls in on himself to try to make himself as small as possible, an anxious tick he developed, before he holds onto Edward. He wants to focus on the other's heartbeat, if possible. He'll have to apologize later for being so clingy but for now he's soaking this in.

It doesn't take him long with how tired he is to begin to drift off. It felt like the day was never going to end and now that he has some safety, someone he knows and cares for, it feels okay to let go. He trusts Ed to not let anything happen. He won't leave him. He hopes.

He tries to push away all the messy thoughts and emotions from today and finally lets himself sleep.

[revelboo]

Could we mayhaps get an update on the Constructicons? It was just getting spicy, with the others impatient for a turn 🤭

Sure! 🔞 Mass displaced mechs 🌶️

Drive Pt 13

Constructicons x Reader

• Still wound up from the feel of Mixmaster’s mouth on you, squirming under Bonecrusher, you hang onto him as you come apart and he snarls, hips rolling urgently until he shudders against you and you feel his heat filling you. His lips brush your temple and cheek as he rests his helm against you, and the intimacy of it catches you off guard. Realizing this isn’t just sex to them. That this never was going to be as casual as that. Hear him venting on a low growl before reluctantly pulling out, his big hand cupping your cheek, a servo feathering against you. “Little mate,” he growls, the possessiveness in his voice making you shiver. And Scrapper and Hook growl at each other in their own language, Long Haul voicing his own opinion and backing down when they both snarl at him. Arguing over you? Scrapper approaches you, warm palm sliding over the outside of your thigh as his head tips to study you, but there’s no time to be self conscious about any of it.

• Staring at you, your eyes hooded and dark with arousal as you lay there, thighs slick with Bonecrusher’s release painting your skin, Scrapper wonders how much of his need is his own and how much is Bonecrusher’s influence. Loving you because Bonecrusher does and that vulnerable uncertainty in your eyes sinks into him, leashing the questions. It doesn’t matter if Bonecrusher put the thought into his processor, because it feels right. “You’re ours,” he growls, certainty threading the words. On some level it feels like he’d known you would be all along, and he’s cupping your cheek as he releases his spike and shifts over you. You claimed them, called them your mates and now they’re claiming you in return. Gave them something to unite over, a spot of warmth and acceptance when they’re not used to it. Jaw gritting as he stretches you slowly, he grips the edge of your berth, servos sinking into the soft mattress on top as he moves against you and you tremble under him. “We’re keeping you. Our little conjunx.” Hips pumping, he leans over you fascinated with the way you look lost in pleasure, gasping his name. “Eyes on me,” he growls, taking his time savoring the feel of you under him, those soft noises you make. “Don’t look away.” You’re so tight and wet around him, hands soft when you hang onto him and you move to meet his thrusts. Those trusting eyes staring up at him as he begins to move faster, beating you to the finish line and overloading inside you. Keeps thrusting before reluctantly pulling out when Mixmaster growls at him to hurry up.

• Glossa sliding over his denta remembering the taste of you, he flips you onto your belly and drives into your heat, hips pumping urgently. Rutting against you impatiently. Waited so long for this, for someone to make the first move. Hips snapping against you as you moan and squirm, his head falls back on a groan. Because it feels like you were made just for him, for them. Imagines shifting his plating, sparking you. Would you let him have that? Fill you and spark you? Scrapper already said it. Called you their conjunx. Getting rougher when he hears you whimper his name before you’re coming apart, fisting his spike and he groans when he releases inside you, shuddering as he leans over you to nuzzle your cheek. “Primus, you’re beautiful,” he snarls, groaning as he pulls out and nearly overloads again at his slick mingling with his brothers’s and trailing down your thighs, painting you in pink and blue.

• Snarling at Long Haul when the mech tries to go next, Hook flares his plating slightly in warning before shifting behind you and releasing his spike to pressurize. For a moment frozen as your head turns to look back at him, your breathing ragged and his brothers’s slick making a mess of you. Needing to add his own. Fill you until he has nothing left to give you. Groaning as he buries himself in you, he lazily rocks against you. Savoring the feel of you as you squirm, whimpering a protest that you’re too sensitive that makes him smile. “You’ve got two more mates to accept after me,” he whispers in your ear, feeling your thighs trembling against him. And he’s not going to be rushed, wants to enjoy the first time, the feel of you gripping his spike as you squirm under him. One of your legs sliding against the outside of his as you moan his name. “That’s right,” he growls, hips pumping. “You’re going to take all of us.” Multiple times if he has his way and you tremble under him on a soft cry, milking his spike until he overloads with a growl.

• You’re messy and slick with their excess, glowing rivulets running down your legs and dripping on the floor as Hook moves to let Long Haul replace him. Wants to make you even messier, to frag you until he overloads inside you and then to pump his spike until he releases on your skin, because you look obscene and amazing laying there panting and well fragged. “Look at you,” he snarls, driving deep to make you whimper. And he only manages a handful of hard thrusts, shuddering at the wet sound of his spike pounding inside you before he’s overloading hard. Far too quickly and he snarls as Scavenger drags him away and replaces him. “Wasn’t done.”

• “We can go another round,” Scavenger growls dismissively, his spike pressurizing as he spears into you and you whimper. ‘I can’t,’ you protest, thighs trembling as he moves inside you. And you’re so slick, so tight as he thrusts deep. “Just one more for me. Let me take care of you” he coaxes, hands gripping you as his hips snap against you. Engine snarling when his fans kick on and he knows he won’t last long this first time. Hears you moan his name as he ruts inside you. Wondering what it would feel like to press you against their spark as Devastator. To be tangled in you while they’re all combined and he’s overloading at the thought, grinding against you on a groan as he gives you everything. And you really are beautiful when he pulls out, slick with all of their releases as you pant raggedly. Their mate. Leaning to brush a kiss against your shoulder, he moves and watches Bonecrusher cover you again with a snarl. Almost laughing at your startled moan, like you didn’t realize this isn’t just a quick frag. Most likely, you’re not leaving that berth tonight except for them to feed you before they start over again. They’ve all been waiting for this long enough.

Previous

[kazukazuhas]

˗ˏˋ ꒰ 💌 ꒱ old friends, lloyd garmadon.┊ ˚➶ ｡˚ ☁️

˗ˏˋ ꒰ 💌 ꒱ act two ;; scene two┊ ˚➶ ｡˚ ☁️

  ୧ ⎯⎯ CONVERSATIONS

୧ ⎯⎯ WARNINGS ;; unspoken daddy issues ;; lloyd being a little insecure and scared ;; unrequited love // pining ;; lil bit of romanticizing

  ୧ ⎯⎯ NOTES ;; i love you, lloyd monty garmadon

  ୧ ⎯⎯ PREVIOUS ┊MASTERLIST┊NEXT

  ୧ ⎯⎯ TEXT ;; NO IMAGES

  there was talking when you woke up —muffled and slurred by your sleepiness,— from where you presumed was outside of the room. you shift to face the windows, where lloyd and his displaced chair was when you fell asleep to find that he focused on the door with narrowed eyes staring holes as he listened. he always had better hearing than you. 

  “hi,” he quietly greeted you, examining you for any discomfort with the firm, cold —though now a little softer, you think— look he had when looking at the door; he returned his attention back to continue listening to the commotion. you look up at him with confusion on your face, squeezing his hand to get his attention but it doesn’t budge him much. “skywalker?” this time, you call in hopes you get some explanation. 

though, you can't deny the focused look on his face is adorable.

  he squeezes your hand back, perking up as the conflict grows loudly outside of the room. he shook his head, looking back at you with a soft warmth in his eyes. “sorry, i was trying to piece that story together,” he admits, a little sheepish smile on his lips as he beams softly at you. 

  “and?” now you’re curious. 

  “so, i think the first lady, wanted to see someone –who i guess just got admitted in– but there’s another lady who said she can’t– so they got into an argument of who can and can’t do what,” he breaks it down quickly with his attention divided between you and outside; the commotion had died down now and the sound of light shuffling began to sink away. “sounds like some family drama.”

  “sounds less terrible than our drama– speaking of… what’s up with your father, may i ask?” it's an impulsive question you ask, but you keep your tone light in the case he decides to back away from the topic. lloyd was never one to talk or ask about his father, a man you doubt he knew. he sought to find that affection in your father, who willingly showed it to the boy.

  lloyd tensed up (you mentally curse yourself for being curious about his father) before returning his full focus on you and the topic at hand, he gnawed a little on his lip and looked down to where your hand was intertwined with his. the blond cleared his throat and spoke in a low, uncertain tone, “he was a tyrant.”

  that was all he said for several minutes, leaning down to rest his head on the soft covers and mattress of your hospital bed, still avoiding your eyes. “had been trying to take over ninjago for… months? years?” he hesitantly continues, looking up with soft –hurt– eyes.

  “that’s– why he left. but he’s better now. nothing like what he was before– not all evil and.. he’s my dad now,” lloyd explains, putting his explanation in simple words as a hesitant smile grows on his lips.

  you sit up slowly, threading a hand through his hair, you smile at him with a similar, warmer softness to comfort him. “are you scared of being him, what he was?” he nods a little, leaning into your touch. “you won’t be, lloyd. you’re a good person,” your words are soft spoken —but they’re true— as you watch him, he sighs quietly before nodding again. 

  “i– i know.” his voice was small, soft with uncertainty and slight fear mixing despite his agreement. “thanks,” he mumbles, looking up at you with a small smile on his lips.

  “anything for you,” you muse, smiling back as he closes his eyes and enjoys the feeling of you playing with his hair so delicately. your words have a gentle tone of promise in them, a little love and adoration. you mean it, you’d do anything for him. 

  lloyd looks up at you, peeking with one eye as he questions your words a little, noticing the vague underlying tone of them. but he drops his curiosity and chuckles a little, lifting his head up so your hand holds his face in a not awkward way. lloyd tilts his face inward, pressing his lips to your palm softly and, in the process, making your heart swell a little. “right back at you.” you smile back at him, his own words were sweet enough for you.

  he hums, leaning into your hand with one of his holding it gently.

  “hungry?” he asks a little quietly, squeezing your hand a little. you shake your head, “not really.” lloyd laughs, kissing your palm again —oh, why did he do it a second time?— before pulling away and reaching for the table at the foot of the bed with his unoccupied hand and sliding it towards you —the other was still holding yours. “you say that but you’ll be hungry in less than a minute.”

  he’s right, you both know it– proves that you two haven’t changed much in your years apart, proves that your friendship’s still the same; something you’re fortunate for having.

  “eat up when you’re ready.” he leans back on his chair and hums a little, smiling while focusing on your hand in his.

 you stare at the food, conflicted on whether or not to prove him right on his observation, opting to change the topic. “who– uh, the ninja? who are they now?”

  he squints a little out of confusion before sighing as he thinks of an answer, humming for a bit before he speaks. “as the name suggests, they’re ninja.” he looks at you, waiting for you to ask more questions so he can answer accordingly.

  when you nod he smiles and continues. “there’s six of them, each have an element and a colour assigned to them and usually what they’re referred to depends; except the water ninja because she and lighting ninja are both blue, one darker and the other brighter– uh, respectively. she’s newer to the team compared to him so he’s preferred to as the blue ninja as well. sometimes she’s red and blue, so it’s easier to call her the water ninja.

“the fire ninja is red and the ice one’s white. the earth ninja’s colour is black and lastly the green ninja is… green,” he explains– rambles harmlessly, looking to the side unfocused as he talks.

  the last sentence answers your question, one you didn’t want to ask but regardless sought an answer for, you’re a little hesitant to ask. “green ninja?” “yep, he’s the one that brought you here,” lloyd confirms. 

  “he and the water ninja were on patrol, and they were in the area when you were–” he stops, eyes hardening when he almost mentions the earlier incident. you watch him, sighing and squeezing his hand. “i’m okay now, lloyd. it’s fine, i’m fine.” you smile at him with a soft understanding look in your eyes. he nods. “i know.”

  the guilt claws at his insides —you can tell he feels it, but you’re unsure as to why— as he buries his face in the crook of his other hand and the blankets. he places your hand back on his head and rests his head on both arms more comfortably. “i’m glad nothing worse happened to you,” he says muffledly, glaring straight ahead at the blankets. 

  there was something he wasn’t saying, conflicted as he bit the sleeve of his hoodie slightly with eyes glued to the blankets. you combed through his hair, soft blond fluffiness with brown peaking out in a few curly locks. you sighed, patting his head to get his attention. lloyd tilted his head to glance up at you, questioning you.

  “let’s eat?” you asked, willing to prove him right if it might his mind be taken of whatever he was thinking about. he smiled a little, a mischievous sparkle in his eye as he sat up. “of course,” he’s grinning ear to ear as he pulls the table closer to you, food rattling a little and grabbing something from his bag. “nya made some food for you and sent, and hospital food is a solid no.”

  “thank nya then,” you sigh happily, watching him unwrap something, a sandwich he probably packed for himself. you slide him some of much food nya sent, “eat,” you command, staring at him challengingly. 

  “no.” he stared back, a mischievous grin on his lips. 

  well, this’ll be fun.

  ୧ ⎯⎯ PREVIOUS ┊MASTERLIST┊NEXT

  ୧ ⎯⎯ TAGLIST ;; @spoopy-fish-writes // @spoops-inliyue ;; @decaffeinatedcloudkryptonite // @shaantiofher ;; @sunangelstears ;; @comicbookweirdo ;; @cl0udyw4ter ;; @chamille-trash ;; @candy884422 ;; @rossivette ;; @veiyx ;; @pix-y-styx ;; @a3th3rrr ;; @deluludhii // [pm/send in an ask to join]

˗ˏˋ ꒰ 💌 ꒱ kazukazuhas copr. 2023 darling┊ ˚➶ ｡˚ ☁️

[iniziare]

🔥well if you're offering chocolate

Not sure if I'll ruffle feathers with this one (as if me being the not-so-friendly neighborhood misogynist wasn't enough), but I'm tired of seeing the claims of 'I want development' throughout the fandom, only to then seeing many not actually really wanting it at all. I think people are very much in love with the idea of dynamics, and ships, but not the actual substance of them. I think people want the so-called 'payoff' of the long-term storytelling without the effort of actually earning it. Newsflash: the endgame will never, ever be as satisfying as you hope it to be, if you skip all of the build-up (or the 'high' certainly won't last as long). But also, after years of going through this, it's really kind of disheartening for those who actually do crave the journey to the end destination. Because it's on some level, false advertisement. We go in with hope, and positive expectations— and then find ourselves in a place that seems like it rushed to the endgame while all we did was blink, and sneeze once, and it feels like the universe displaced us to the final chapter of a book.

I don't know how many people actually want to linger in the in-between anymore. You know what I mean, the little things, the unspoken things, the quiet, and seemingly trivial moments which in all reality are what make the big things matter. The tension of uncertainty, the slow unraveling of the familiar between two people, the weight of the words that are left unsaid in scenes— none of that is given room to breathe. And instead, I most often see people rushing to the climax, skipping the foundation entirely. Characters meet, they smile at one another, and then they're immediately found to be inseparable. A single thread in, and they're already touching on intimacy in the form of a lingering gaze, a hungry thought— ships seem to go from A to Z like a fast-forwarded trip down a checklist, but skipping the messy, human moments that make those milestones on your checklist mean anything.

And it's not just about the romantic pairings, any kind of relationship needs time to settle, to shift, to build in layers. But I think patience in RP is close to a dying art, if it isn't borderline dead already. People want the dynamic without the journey, the intensity without the foundation. And personally, I think this is the root cause to something else that I think is very prevalent in the fandom: quantity over quality. Because if you write without the substance that give things their realism, then they'll feel hollow, and superficial, this is why ships fizzle out, why connections don't last. Because if you don't actually develop something— if you don't let it breath, and grow, and change, then all you really have is an idea of something, and not the actual thing itself.

And to close this out with: here's my thing, if writing like that is how you want to write your dynamics, whether they're platonic or romantic, that's fine, there's nothing wrong with that if it's what you prefer. But then it's vital that you advertise yourself accordingly, so that people know what they're getting themselves into if they choose you as a writing partner to potentially even ship with. If you say you like slow-burn, and development, realize that these words mean something, you can't just say 'this is what I do too', and then not do it. Because if someone takes you at face value (which we should be able to do), and then they end up with a ship that's reached the last show of the night on the Discovery channel, quite a number of us will be really disheartened by that. And it's all because some might want to spend actual, literal months developing these pairings alongside plenty of yapping behind the scenes that never ends, and then we don't get to. And the reason why this is a bigger deal than I think people may give it credit for, is because when ships have reached their end destination, the high for it wears off for so many people (and no, saying 'no no, I'm still interested' doesn't cut it, when your actions actively contradict it). And for anyone who's like me, that's detrimental, because I never leave that high, that honeymoon phase never ends for me, ever. I will be as feral about my ships on day #730, as I was on day #1. And if it seems like I no longer am, guess what— then the above is probably what happened.

Prompt: 🔥for an unpopular opinion. // @resolutepath // No longer accepting

[ears-awake-eyes-opened]

About Achilles

(Newtina ❤️ — Thanks @themysteriousphoenix for the dialogue prompt.)

For months, Newt had imagined his hands on Tina. These thoughts were far from proper, but he couldn’t stop them. In moments of clarity, he wanted much more than grasping in apparition; he wanted more than brushing his thumb along her cheek.

How would it be to leap into her and know the feeling of her skin from the inside out? Would he close his eyes? Would she keep hers open? A metaphorical leap, of course. Though his desire to touch her was painfully real.

She was here now, after waiting so long. She was close enough to touch. All he had to do was reach out, but uncertainty held him back.

Uncertainty holding Newt back from people was perhaps the thickest thread woven through his existence. Though he was changing. Maybe a little, he’d said. Perhaps more than a little. Life was changing him.

Memories of Paris wrapped around him like a jellyfish, stinging, pulling him into a world unknown.

And still Tina hadn’t mentioned Achilles Tolliver.

I shouldn’t be feeling all of this for her if she’s seeing somebody else. But willing either of those scenarios to be false wouldn’t make whatever the truth was any less so.

Newt was nearly crawling out of his skin. He needed to know.

“Tina, your letters...”

“What about them?”

“They were... We were... I thought we were...”

“You thought we were — what?”

“I thought we were... something.”

“I thought we were something too.”

Newt’s heart was beating in his throat. He had to know. There was no other way out of this unique quality of suffering.

“Tina... I’m sorry; if it’s not appropriate to ask, you can tell me to mind my own business... But I’ve been wondering about — about Achilles Tolliver?”

“Achilles Tolliver? How do you...”

“Queenie...” Newt mentioned her cautiously, knowing the wounds of Paris were fresh for Tina too. Though avoiding talk about their loved ones wouldn’t make the hurt any less.

“Queenie said you’d been seeing him.”

Tina stiffened reflexively. The intensities surrounding thoughts of her sister were overwhelming.

In contrast, the intensities surrounding thoughts of Achilles were quite underwhelming. She actually hadn’t thought about him at all.

“I went out with him after reading about your engagement.”

“I see. ...But why would you have thought that would be true — that I would marry Leta?”

“Why should I have thought it would be UNTRUE?”

“Actually, why shouldn’t you have thought it would be true. The world is, after all, fairly black and white in your eyes.”

“Black and white.”

“Moderately.”

Tina clenched her hands into fists. That was reflexive too. Her nervous system always went first to fight and defend. “You’re saying I see the world as black and white?!”

“The full spectrum can be blinding at times.” He didn’t like this. He didn’t want them to be speaking in metaphor. He wanted clarity.

“You’re saying my vision is compromised?” She was agitated.

“I didn’t say that.”

Tina turned and stomped toward her coat hanging on the door.

He followed her step by step. “Please... I didn’t say that. Please don’t walk away from me, I just — I’m not good at this whole interacting with others thing. But I really am trying here.”

She paused before the door and turned to face him. His expression was terribly lost and remarkably certain.

I’m in love with you; she knew. She was sure of it. Leaving was so damn far from what she wanted.

“There’s all this grey, Tina. Feathers and hides and the bark of trees, The sky fading from blue after the sun sets.” ...The coat you wore the day we met, he almost said, but he didn’t quite say. Instead he absentmindedly caressed the empty sleeve of her coat still hanging on the door.

Tina noticed the caress, and her tone softened. “‘Magizoologist Newton Scamander to marry childhood sweetheart...’ ‘Fiancé Leta Lestrange.’ What’s grey about that?”

“That magazine is rubbish. It would be better off as food for goats. No one who knows me calls me ‘Newton.’”

“In your letters you said your father calls you Newton.”

“My point exactly.”

A subtle smile crept up and displaced her irritation. The feeling tickled her cheeks. She hadn’t smiled much in several weeks.

Newt kept holding onto the sleeve of her coat — as a lifeline. He felt the pull of an unknown future. It was destabilizing, like an undertow. He could drown in her — if she’d let him. He wouldn’t fight it. He knew this, even if he knew nothing else.

“It didn’t work with Achilles,” she said.

Newt breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t even try to conceal it.

“It couldn’t have worked,” she added, “Because you’re right.”

“About what exactly?”

“I do tend to see things as black or white, right or wrong... and with him it was wrong. It was all wrong.”

“Bichromatic vision does have advantages.” Newt grinned, though he didn’t look her in the eyes for longer than a moment. This was too intense.

She held his eyes though, green like this September after a summer of rain. “Look at me,” her tone grew serious, “Newt, please.”

He looked, and he managed to hold her gaze too. He could certainly offer that much when he wanted so much more.

“Do you want to know why it was wrong with Achilles?”

“Why?” he asked without hesitation.

“Because he wasn’t you.”

Newt let go of her empty coat and reached for the sleeve of the shirt she was wearing. He couldn’t evade the impulse. He slid his fingertips along delicate fabric to the cuff and toyed with the pearly button at her wrist.

“Do you want to know why I wouldn’t have married Leta?”

“Why?”

“Because she wasn’t you.”

He slipped his hand into hers, without haste, without needing to be anywhere else. He stroked her palm. She let the feeling wash over her. The tug was powerful and sweet.

“Newt...” she whispered, hoping speech wouldn’t break the spell.

“Something is happening.” He moved his thumb in circles, crossing every line that might have foretold her future, changing everything. “Tell me I’m not wrong.”

She stepped forward, closing the distance between them.

The lights were dim, and they stood in shadow. Tina envisioned a grove of Beech trees in Central Park. Their bark was smooth, reminiscent of clouds before rain. She’d run around them as a child, dodging falling leaves in autumn and snowflakes in winter. She could see it all backward and forward. She wanted the memories and the possibilities.

She hooked her finger through a belt loop on his trousers and pulled him against her. “You’re not wrong,” she said simply.

Grey was good.

[innervoiceartblog]

(via Unraveling – Terry Tempest Williams)

Photo by Rhonda Lashley Lopez

Unraveling by Terry Tempest Williams

Terry Tempest Williams searches for what is revealed when worlds unravel, tracing the entangled nature of undoing and becoming.

Unravel   un·rav·el  |  \ ˌənˈravəl \

verb gerund or present participle: unraveling

1. undo (twisted, knitted, or woven threads)

Similar: untangle, disentangle, straighten out, separate out, unsnarl, unknot, unwind, untwist, undo, untie, unkink, unjumble

2. (of an intricate process, system, or arrangement) disintegrate or be destroyed

Similar: fall apart, come apart (at the seams), fail, collapse, go wrong

3. investigate and solve or explain (something complicated or puzzling)

Similar: solve, resolve, work out, clear up, puzzle out, find an answer to, get to the bottom of, explain, elucidate, fathom, decipher, decode, crack, penetrate, untangle, unfold, settle, reveal, clarify, sort out, make head or tail of, figure out, suss (out)

I am unraveling. I am unraveling like a rattlesnake in the desert tightly coiled, my tail issuing a warning I cannot yet decipher. My mind is unraveling as I move to free my thoughts from being held captive for too long in such a tensely wound space. For months, I have been in a defensive stance visible only to surrounding ghosts. Fear brought me here. Uncertainty brought me here. Two hundred and fifty thousand dead from the coronavirus brought me here. My capacity to strike, from one emotion to the next, frightens me. After isolating myself in a landscape of arid beauty for the past nine months during a global pandemic, why do I find myself in the process of unraveling now? What is waiting and wanting to come forth?

When I don’t know what something means, I do three things: consult a dictionary; ask someone I respect and listen; go for a walk.

The dictionary gave me definitions, but what caught my attention was the word “reveal” in the list of synonyms. To unravel is to reveal what has been hidden. And when I asked my father (now 87 years old and weathering the pandemic at home with his partner and a borrowed dog named Sparky) what he thought it meant to “unravel,” he simply said, “I’m too bored to think about it.”

I understand.

An hour later, Brooke and I went for a walk. We found a small, unexpected pioneer cemetery, adorned with plastic red and blue roses, on a bluff overlooking the Dolores River. We stopped to watch a great blue heron fish the shallows. The long-legged bird was not unraveling; she was paying attention, focused on her task. Within minutes, she speared a trout, most likely a rainbow. We watched her slowly, deliberately walk back to the mudflats, toss her head back, releasing the fish into the air, and on its way down gulp the trout whole. The narrow body of the trout, now a bulge, was moving down her neck in a series of muscular swallows. The heron stood still for some time along the riverbank, then waded back into the depths of her perfect concentration.

What interested me in this particular moment was how the heron could live her life, as her species was meant to live, with an integrity of purpose in place—even as the ecosystem to which she belongs is unraveling around her. Climate change is affecting the flow of the Colorado River, with its incoming tributaries, like the Dolores, waning. We are now in what climate scientists are calling “a megadrought.” Moab’s average annual rainfall is 10 inches. In 2020, we have received 4.9 inches, less than half the norm. Monitoring the health of the Dolores River, the nonprofit group Conservation Colorado gave the Dolores River a grade of D− in terms of its water quality. Why? Dams and reservoirs disrupt the natural flows and displace sediments, deeply altering the character of the river. Abandoned mines and uranium tailings continue to leach into the headwaters, carrying on a toxic history familiar to the Four Corners region of the American Southwest. Increased fossil fuel development, including fracked gas, is affecting water tables and aquifers, all contributing to its failing grade.

Could we read the health of the great blue heron fishing along the Dolores River through this poisonous narrative now alive in her bloodstream? Like us, each species large and small—feathered, furred, or finned—carries the larger story of planetary health in their cells. The difference between our species and other species is that we are responsible for much of the demise of all the others.

As life on the planet is unraveling, in ways seen and unseen, we are also unraveling the natural consequences that these larger narratives of unconscious behavior are inflicting on populations, both human and wild. For example, the heinous, illegal wildlife trafficking infiltrating “wet markets” (where fresh meat, fish, and produce are sold) from Asia to Africa and across the globe is responsible for 75 percent of zoonotic viruses. COVID-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, is a zoonotic disease. That means it came from an animal or animals. SARS-CoV-2 is not the first novel coronavirus to infect humans—it’s the seventh.

A report from the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) found “that the United States imported almost 23 million whole animals, parts, samples and products made from bats, primates and rodents over a recent five-year period. These animals harbor 75% of known zoonotic viruses—pathogens that spread from animals to people.”

Wildlife markets in China—where animals are “kept in cramped cages for purchase and slaughter”—are believed to be the source of the global pandemic we now find ourselves in. The CBD goes on to say that, “…many researchers believe it originated from a bat, a scaly mammal called a pangolin (globally the most heavily trafficked mammal), or potentially both. The virus may have spilled over to humans from an unknown animal. Or it may have evolved after infecting people.”

We are unraveling in inexplicable ways given how tightly and mysteriously the world is woven together. Pull one strand and all the strands are disrupted, threatening the integrity of the overall pattern.

We are Earth unraveling and reforming creation.

Along with dictionaries, scientists, and the land itself, I consult the Dead. I hear my grandmother telling me to focus on “the golden thread” that shows us “the through line” that weaves the world back together again. Where might this golden thread be found now?

In March, early in the novel coronavirus pandemic, a global prayer was held at a designated time on a Sunday morning for the Earth and all its inhabitants. Like so many collective rituals, this reached me on the wind by word of mouth.

I walked outside and faced Round Mountain, an ancient volcano plug in the southern end of the valley where we live. I held my grandmother’s “hand stone”—an egg-shaped, polished amethyst—in my right hand as I had seen her do repeatedly. It was her talisman, which she bequeathed to me in her will. She told me it calmed her heart and opened it. I closed my eyes in prayer—believing in the power and connectivity of people gathered together in the name of health and peace on the planet. My mind was quiet, receptive.

In time, I began to feel a heat rising in me from the ground up. To quell my fears and skepticism, I kept my attention focused on how the warmth was settling in my body. In my mind’s eye, I saw a flame coming toward me from the center of Round Mountain, gaining in heat and size and intensity, until it entered my heart, becoming “a burning core of care”—those were the words that came to me as this force burned with a ferocity of intent that I have never known. My grandmother’s hand stone was hot, almost too hot to hold. Opening my eyes, I opened my hand. The stone was shattered inside, with dozens of fracture lines appearing that had not been there before. It didn’t make sense. My eye focused on a particularly large and complex fracture that occurred at the intersection where the deepest purple merged with the brightest, clearest part of the crystal. Within that broken angle, it appeared brown, burnt. I lifted the crystal up toward the light, and therein, I saw a flame.

I have no explanation for this other than to say that what was burning in me burned through the gemstone in my hand, shattering it. The energy I felt rising from the Earth through the soles of my feet and from Round Mountain itself reached directly into my heart with the radiance of a million prayers circulating around the planet and in that moment created a fire in me of inexhaustible light.

In my desire to understand my own unraveling in this global pandemic, I could not have imagined that it would be my grandmother’s golden thread that would lead me to the source of both my undoing and becoming: isolation and engagement. The golden thread became the gilded sunlight woven into the wings of the great blue heron fishing along the banks of the Dolores River. This same shimmering thread exposed the facts that deciphered the toxic residues from abandoned mines and uranium tailings which are poisoning our rivers, poisoning us, and killing creatures. In a similar way, it cinched the illegal wildlife trade that taunted wet markets with “bush meat,” ripe with tainted blood, a spillover causing a global virus infecting us all, threatening what we have taken for granted: Life.

This golden strand reveals what binds awe and terror together, as it travels through shadow and light—illuminating the loose threads waiting to be picked up by each of us so we can mend, repair, and restore what has come apart. We can reweave the world anew, not from the places of fear and doubt, but from the intimate spaces of belonging we must retrieve for ourselves. We are Earth unraveling and reforming creation. We are meant to engage not isolate. These are difficult days. What causes us to recoil, strike, and retreat is also what allows us to reach out from the anxiety of unknowing and dare to trust what is to come—a reassembling of our humanity.

There is something deeper than hope. Between the hours of darkness and dawn, the voices of our ancestors are amplified in the dreamtime—warning us of our awakening wisdom—a blessing to behold and a burden to enact.

[gascon-en-exil]

Joining the Game Late: S6E2 “Home”

Synopsis

Bran spent the last season having flashbacks in a tree, and Meera is understandably frustrated. Hodor is still Hodor, and not Wylis. Tormund comes to save Jon’s loyalists. The Mountain keeps Joffrey’s legacy in the streets of King’s Landing alive. The Lannisters continue to be frustrated by the High Sparrow. Tyrion drinks and comes up with the brilliant idea of unchaining Dany’s dragons. Arya passes a test. Ramsey gets a brother, then makes himself an orphan and an only child again in short again. Brienne catches Sansa up, and Theon wants to head home. Back at said home, Balon Greyjoy is the last of the five kings, but that lasts for about five minutes and now there’s a succession crisis for the Ironborn. Melisandre rezzes Jon.

Commentary

I wonder about the logistics of bringing back an actor for a season of a TV show only to kill their character off after only one or two scenes, because in addition to half the Dornish cast in the last episode this one adds Roose, Walda, and Balon Greyjoy (who last appeared in, uh, Season 3 I think?) to that list. Of those Roose is the only one’s who had anything resembling a character arc, but it’s still an awkward way to send someone off.

In one sense however the timing of Balon’s death was quite clever. The season opened with Melisandre doubting her powers, and she revealed her vulnerability to the audience in a truly gruesome way. That thread continues here with her uncertainty in her ability to resurrect Jon, something she’d also expressed insecurity over during her brief encounter with the Brotherhood Without Banners. Yet, just a few scenes before she succeeds in bringing Jon back to life the last part of her spell using Gendry’s blood takes effect, and Balon joins Robb and Joffrey in death. Not that it really matters now that Stannis is also dead, but whatever power she has is demonstrated to be genuine in spite of her recent setback. It almost excuses the show forgetting about the Iron Islands for something like two whole seasons, coming back on that note as well as on Theon coming back to himself and desiring to return home. 

Home is, naturally, a motif of this episode, first introduced with a returning Bran and his visions of the past generation of Starks, but it’s not exactly a cozy one. The Lannisters aren’t safe in their home so long as the Faith Miiltant continues to menace them. Sansa has lost her home again to the Boltons - now just Ramsey after he kills his father, stepmother, and newborn brother to satisfy his self-centered insecurities. We’re again reminded of when Dany’s home in Meereen began to turn sour, with Tyrion unchaining the two dragons she’d caged up. And Theon’s home has big changes in store with Balon’s death, with the implication that it may not be smooth sailing for the Greyjoys. It all somewhat works together to convey the idea that the world of GoT hasn’t had a stable location the audience could call home by association with its most central characters for quite some time, no Shire equivalent as it were. Indeed, even as someone who never cared much for hobbits and their Shire or (collectively) the Starks of Winterfell I’m feeling that displacement myself, because King’s Landing with the Lannisters on such uncertain ground and the Tyrells practically nonexistent no longer feels like the city I came to enjoy in the first four seasons. That’s not bad per se because I know what this is building to, but there’s been a real shift there and I’m still processing it in a way.

Oh, and speaking of less than interesting centralizing presences, Jon’s alive again. Not that I had any suspense on the matter, but I’m glad that only lasted two episodes rather than being dragged out any further.

[heartoftheforce]

Count to four--inhale.  Count to four--exhale.

 The resonant thrum of a heart knocking against the back of Revan’s lungs resounded in either ear with the dead quiet pervading the atmosphere. A deluge of sterile light illuminated every nook and cranny of the cell the robed figure currently inhabited. Dark hues of grey and black clashed against this bath of pale radiance from where he sat, legs folded over one another and hands resting against either knee. Encircling him was an oval scratched into the smooth material of the floor while similar shapes ran parallel and overlapped until some semblance to a Venn diagram emerged, arcane runes conforming to the overall design along the margins of its perimeter. And placed where each point of overlap created a bubble of space were unlit candles made from congealed animal fat stained bright scarlet.  Every third breath taken was a motion from the bodily orchestra’s conductor to the percussive rhythm trapped behind his ribcage to begin a gradual wane. This prompting did not cease until each rap was separated by whole seconds of utter silence. Either eye narrowed until half-lidded before glazing over as the revanchist’s body was wracked with sporadic convulses while being subject to some unseen, intermittent electroshock therapy.  Heralding a palpable and suffocating screen of malignancy were subtle whispers from every which way, chortling and making malicious remarks just within the margins of Revan’s apprehension. It was like someone made dry ice out of acrid smog and three-week-old gravy someone left out, uncovered, before going on vacation to smoke out the cell he now resided in, something which ate through his gauntlets like a pocket of radiation. A sensory deluge bathed the room’s interior in the frigid chill of the vacuum kept at bay by the mere alloys comprising the hull of the ship. Such a cold bit through the protective fabric draped across the man’s body, pricking every inch of skin with the serrated tips of thousands upon thousands of rime knives.  A malaise was plumbed up from the recesses of his psyche, reeled to the forefront so as to cloud his mind with thoughts of the wanton slaughter carried out by the Mandalorians. Stinging rancid bile crept up to the back of his throat as the memories played out in rapid succession. Untold billions of lives silenced while tens of millions were displaced, yet another crippling blow to the galactic economy--forcing those still recovering from the War of Exar Kun further into the recesses of poverty. His ears, pulsating with now boiling blood, rang with the echoes of countless innocent screams and the dying gasps of soldiers he could not shepherd unto the dawn of a new day.  Revan’s psyche was akin to a vast lake, and the conscious mind of the man residing at the very center rested against the surface in a meditative stance. But beyond that lake he called home, there lied a deeper, darker ocean green. Where the waves were both wilder and more serene. It was from thence that the torrent of foul moods and awful emotions threatened to engulf the entirety of his being, a flash flood unlike anything anyone else could experience--such was the danger of the magiks he now performed.  But the sanctity of his mind, coupled with an unequivocal force of will, was not so easily consumed.

 Within Revan stirred both halves of the Force, pouring out and feeding into the lake of his psyche like tributary rivers of luminous truth. Together they suffused the intensifying rapids until the clashing contrasts erupted into a cacophonous maelstrom the likes of which dwarfed the perennial storms raging across gas giants. Vivid shades of scarlet, crimson and a black hue wheeled about like amorphous stormclouds taking on the semblance of asperitous blades. Meanwhile, brilliant colors of sapphire, sky blue and radiant white twirled about in flowing gales. All that which threatened to sweep the man away was caught up in the raging typhoon. But even this threatened to consume Revan in his entirety, this chaotic rancor.  Then the glassiness was washed away, clarity returned to the Butcher’s apprehension and he focused inward.  In an undulating wave formed in the wake of a tremendous earthquake, the lake rippled outward from where Revan sat--undisturbed. Up and up it stretched until even the maelstrom was but a pint-sized babe that came up to the knee of its parent. Then it continued rolling outward, engulfing the tempestuous melee in an iron-clad grip before impelling a deafening stillness unto the combatants.  No longer was there a tumultuous three-way conflict between the two halves and outsourced malignant negativity.  Rather, a whispy grey fogbank clung to every nook and crevice of his psyche like a tenacious tangle of scrub brush.  It was in this echoing quietude that Revan chose to unfurl his legs and rise to his feet, surveying the shrouded environs with a methodical pivot of his head. The opaque ether parted wherever his gaze fell like someone sweeping a hand through a wall of congealed mist, the grey rushing back to fill the gaps in his stare’s wake. Half-formed specters and vague shapes were evinced to dot the surface of the placid lake when his sight passed over them, each a bobbing lifebuoy. Yet even this minute animation, with such physical obfuscation, hampered all but himself from moving with any degree of ease, like a pit of tar bereft of heat long enough to become a gelatinous mass.  Amid all the faint forms, there was one with as much definition as himself standing atop the water’s surface.

 He sauntered forward without a single utterance or wavelet left in his wake, eyes locked squarely upon the aforementioned entity. A hushed voice came through, barely above a whisper,  It was of the same height and build as the Butcher himself, adorned in charcoal robes with scarlet accents and battle-worn beskar armor. Cinched to either of its hips were the sabers he’d developed since his time as a padawan. And every few moments, a tic caused its body to spasm involuntarily. Beyond this one discrepancy, though, the two were perfect copies of one another.  But approaching it wasn’t as simple as trekking in a straight line, evinced by how the parallel repeated every motion carried out by the original.  He cocked his head at this queer behavior, only for the other to do the same gesture in the opposite direction.  Taking a step back prompted it to do so as well--this time doing so with the opposite foot the dark lord used.  So the revanchist decided to about-face away from his twin before then extending a hand in front of him. He concentrated on a spot some distance ahead of where he stood; an empty pocket of air roughly ten meters away. Then he’d gesticulate as if reaching out to grab as he would when employing the Force--there was a tightening sensation across his backside.  Once this was done, he’d focus on the thought of repelling the thing he’d grabbed like two same charged magnets made to face one another. At which point, the tightening sensation transitioned to a tugging that began dragging him backward towards his duplicate.  Revan stopped once he was no more than two feet away from his doppelganger; trepidation and uncertainty now pierced through into the very core of his being. But he swallowed this dry lump developing in his throat taking in a lungful of frigid air--count to four, inhale--and centering himself--count to four, exhale--with a sigh.  At which point, he thought to try rotating that which he imagined being in his grasp and allowed his double to do so to him.

 Now he stood face to face with himself, the double’s face a flawless surface of reflective material mirroring his masked visage. What stared back was the image of a man stained in the screams of innocent lives and inconsolable grieving of shattered families. Draped across his shoulders was the fractured remnants of a once-proud people laid low with the death of their great uniter. The murder of a whole planet cast a darkness over the features of his mask, blurring them until they were unrecognizable. In one hand, he held a severed lower jaw still dripping with scarlet ichor while the other clutched onto the visor once worn by Mandalore the Ultimate, cracks spiderwebbing out from the center. And a grievous latticework of repulsive scars from the lives of Jedi he’d snuffed out, would erase in time and lead down a dark path marred the entirety of his frontside from his neck down to his calves.  Yet the flame of resolve roaring in the Prodigal Knight’s eyes was as it had been on the day he set out to raise Hell when he could not bend Heaven, cutting through every distortion. Even when faced with what he’d become in order to see justice done--the fire had not waned.  The intensity of this incandescence was enough to fracture the mirror face of his doppelganger, the fissures growing in spasmodic bursts until it could no longer maintain its integrity.  “I am who I am and I do what I must, this I accept,” Revan’s words reverberated in triplicate, begetting the fracturing of the duplicate’s face to spread to the rest of its body. “Let the historians decide whether I was good or evil, light or dark--I am Revan, and I cast aside these divisive labels.” And, with the final syllable’s utterance, the final thread of resistance was cut and the copy crumbled away to naught.  Then Revan’s eyes opened to the scene of the room he’d etched the symbols into, whatever disturbances having been present before now nowhere in sight. There was no remains of the duplicate before him, but a lingering shadow yet clung to the farthest corners of the room.  He was still for a minute longer before unfurling his limbs to rise up from the floor and moved towards the door, opening it with a wave of his hand and taking a single step out before stopping, glancing over his shoulder back into the room.  For a moment, a single whispering voice found its way to his ears.

Then he silenced it with a wave of his hand, wiping away the etched symbols as if they were made of chalk and sand before leaving.